An Overview on Narrative Poetry

When the word “poetry”
is mentioned what typically comes to people’s minds are those pieces of
literature that resemble and sound like song lyrics. To others, what they
commonly picture is the complex language of Shakespeare’s sonnets. What these
poems have in common is that they are short pieces of figurative literature
that explore a central theme or emotion
through the perspective of a persona. Lyric poetry and sonnets are the faces of
poetry. They are so familiar to everyone that most of us often forget that
aside from expressing themes, scenery, and emotions, poetry can also tell
stories. This kind of poetry is called Narrative Poetry.

Roots of Narrative Poetry

Narrative poetry
finds its origin in ancient civilisations. Before the time of televisions or
even before the first book was printed, people found ways to entertain
themselves through stories. These stories are told around campfires and are
often sung by a village priest or an elder. Most of the time, the stories are
so long that the storytellers need to
chop up the narrative which is why most narrative poetry are composed of
multiple small chunks or episodes. That is why for bards and elders to remember
the poems easily, narrative poetry often uses creative language such as
alliteration and kennings.

Types of Narrative Poetry

The Epic – This type is the most well-known among all the kinds of poetry, and
most of them are a heritage of ancient civilisations carried down to the present
time. These poems tell the characteristics, rise and fall, and adventures of a
hero.

Idyll – You can remember this type as it sounds like “ideal” which
is precisely what it is all about. These are narrative poems that talk about a
country’s golden age and the past heroes that they idolise.

Ballads – They are commonly associated with lyric poetry, but some folk tales
are told in the style of ballads where a stanza, better known as a refrain, is
repeated throughout the poem.

Lays – These
are poem sung by medieval court performers. They are narrative in nature
because they are often about important historical facts or about the news of
the day.

Famous Examples of Narrative Poetry

Homer’s The
Iliad and The Odyssey – These two epic poems tell the stories of the
Greek heroes of the Trojan War: their heroic feats and deaths and how those
still alive after the war eventually found their way home again.

Beowulf – This narrative poem is known as the oldest
poem in English literature, and it has no known author. It narrates the story
of Beowulf as he
defeats evil monsters and gains honour and fame for himself.

Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales – Unlike
the epics previously mentioned, Chaucer’s work is actually a collection of 24
stories set in Medieval England. The stories are told by characters on a
pilgrimage from London to Canterbury.

Dante’s The
Divine Comedy – An Italian
masterpiece, it is composed of three books: Inferno,
Purgatorio, and Paradiso. It
tells the journey of Dante, the pilgrim, as he travels through the three realms
of the Christian afterlife.

Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven – This
poem is a piece of American Gothic literature inspired by the author’s
mystifying experiences in dealing with his beloved wife’s untimely death.